UC-NRLF 


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GIFT   OF 


:.) 


Herbert  l|ttauer 

before  the  polfsh  ©onuentfnn  in  Buffalo,  N.  g. 
on  Nnuember  \Zt\x  1919 


"...gigantic  strides...  have  been  made  in  the  building  of  the 
great  edifice  of  independent  Poland." — (Herbert  Hoover). 

"Poland  after  ten  months,  was  a  democracy  with  a  govern- 
ment for  the  people  and  by  the  people". — (Herbert  Hoover). 

"The  need  of  Poland  for  help  and  assistance  from  the 
United  States  is  not  yet  over...  The  coming  winter  will  be  a 
hard  winter  in  Poland". — (Herbert  Hoover). 


JCatiunal  |Jolish  €ttmmtttee  nf  America 
"fat  Selfef  fit  polanb*' 

2138  l^ttxct  Aufnue 
€bkag0.  111. 


Mt.  Herbert  Hoouer 

^tffxxt  the  l^txlxsh  €onuenti0n  In  Sutfalo,  5f.  g. 
011  ^nmmbtt  Uth,  1910. 


I  have  been  asked  to  speak  to  you  on 
the  progress  which  has  been  made  with  the 
establishement  of  free  government  of  the 
Polish  people;  of  the  service  that  you  can 
do  in  the  maintenance  of  this  inspiring  Re- 
public; of  the  service  that  you  must  main- 
tain at  the  same  time  to  the  country  of  your 
adoption. 

I  have  had  the  fortune  to  be  associated 
since  1914  with  many  of  the  men  who  are 
now  comprised  in  the  government  of  Po- 
land. More  particularly,  since  last  Jan- 
uary I  have  been  in  intimate  association 
with  the  problems  and  perplexities  of  the 
Polish  people.  It  is  truly  an  inspiring  thing 
to  witness  thirty  millions  of  people  of  one 
race  and  one  language  emerge  from  150 
years  of  foreign  military  dictatorship  into 
a  free  country.  It  is  doubly  inspiring  to  an 
American  to  see  a  new  nation  founded  on 
the  inspirations  and  ideals  that   we  of  the 

1) 


tMfted'lStateS-ft6l(l"^s  the    very    basis    of 
liberty. 

The  sympathies  of  the  American  and 
Polish  peoples  are  not  an  over-night  crea- 
tion. There  is  not  a  school  child  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  who  does  not  know  of  the  great 
service  to  our  own  war  for  freedom  of  those 
great  military  leaders,  Kosciuszko  and  Pu- 
laski. There  is  not  a  Pole  who  does  not 
know  the  service  these  same  men  gave  to 
free  Poland,  for  which  they  gave  their  lives, 
further,  during  this  150  yrs.  there  has  been 
a  constant  migration  of  Poles  to  the  United 
States  in  an  endeavor  to  find  freedom. 
There  has  been  a  constant  return  of  these 
Poles  to  Poland  and  an  interpretation  of 
American  hopes  and  ideals  amongst  the 
Polish  people.  The  American  sympathy  for 
the  struggle  of  Poland  to  secure  her  inde- 
pendence has  been  constant  from  the  days 
(^  our  own  freedom.  It  was  President  Wil- 
son who  first  enunciated  the  absolute  stipu- 
lation that  the  complete  independence  of  the 
whole  of  the  Polish  people  was  a  fundamen- 
tal condition  of  this  peace. 

You,  the  Polish  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  have  out  of  sympathy  for  your 
mother  country  been  constant  in  contribu- 


Q}'' 


tion  and  moral  support  to  those  leaders  for 
Polish  independence  who  entered  War- 
saw in  triumph  in  January  this  year.  You 
have  contributed  not  only  your  resources, 
but  your  sons  to  this  great  thing.  America 
has  still  another  great  link  of  sympathy 
with  Poland.  One  of  those  two  great  Poles 
who  now  lead  the  Polish  people,  lived  many 
years  in  the  United  States  and  his  inspira- 
tion and  vision  of  government  arise  from 
our  institutions.  Thus  it  comes  that  one  of 
the  two  great  men  who  have  been  the  Guild- 
ers of  the  freedom  of  Poland  is  an  Ameri- 
can citizen.  These  two  great  men,  Padere- 
wski  and  Pilsudzki,  are  today  two  of  the 
greatest  figures  that  have  emerged  from 
this  war.  They  have  the  abilities,  the 
courage  and  resolution  of  constructive 
statesmanship. 

It  requires  but  a  short  review  of  the 
situation  that  existed  ten  months  ago  with- 
in the  present  boundaries  of  Poland  in  con- 
trast to  its  position  today  to  appreciate  the 
gigantic  strides  that  have  been  made  in  the 
making  of  the  great  edifice  of  the  indepen- 
dence of  Poland.  Poland  has  been  for  150 
years  under  subjugration  of  foreign  military 
government.  The  Polish  people  were  griven 
no  opportunity  for  the  development  of  po- 


litical  experience.  Their  only  training  as 
statesmen  lay  in  political  sabotage  and  in 
opposition.  This  same  opposition  has  main- 
tained alive  the  spirit  of  Poland  for  over 
150  years  and,  ripening  at  times  into  bloody 
revolution,  finally  secured  the  Polish  people 
their  independence.  Yet  political  opposi- 
tion is  a  poor  school  for  constructive  gov- 
ernment. The  world  feared  that  the  Poles 
would  fail  in  this  emergency — but  they 
have  not. 

During  the  war  Poland  had  been  rav- 
aged by  four  separate  invasions  —  parts 
of  it  by  even  seven  invasions.  The  destruc- 
tion of  property  and  civilian  life  was  great- 
er than  all  the  destruction  of  property  and 
life  on*  the  Western  front.  Between  three 
and  four  millions  of  Poles  have  died  of 
starvation  or  disease  during  the  war.  The 
Russians  had  ruthlessly  destroyed  thou- 
sands of  square  miles  and  driven  the  entire 
ponulation  from  home  in  an  endeavor  to 
create  a  desert  that  misfht  retard  the  ad- 
vance of  the  German  armies.  This  shocking 
barbarity,  the  literally  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands who  died  as  refugees  at  the  roadsides, 
is  itself  perhaps  one  of  the  curses  that  fell 
on  the  military  oligarchy  of  Russia.  The 
Germans  also  systematically  abstracted  at 


the  point  of  the  bayonet  every  resource  of 
Poland,  scraping  away  such  minor  surpluses 
of  food  as  existed  in  the  more  prolific  sec- 
tions of  Poland  and  leaving  other  regions 
to  starve.  This,  together  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  her  farms  and  the  looting  of  every 
bit  of  agricultural  machinery,  left  millions 
of  Poles  at  the  armistice  threatened  with 
starvation.  There  is  a  greater  exhaustion  of 
work  animals  in  Poland  than  in  any  other 
part  of  Europe. 

At  the  time  of  the  armistice,  approxi- 
mately one  quarter  of  Poland  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Austrian  army,  approximately 
one  half  in  the  hands  of  the  German  army, 
something  over  one  quarter  in  the  hands  of 
the  Bolshevik  army.  The  armistice  called 
for  the  evacuation  of  certain  undoubted  Po- 
lish territory  by  the  German  and  Austrian 
armies.  With  the  German  withdrawal, 
hordes  of  Bolshevik  invaded  a  large  part  of 
Poland,  perpetrating  indescribable  crimes 
in  every  village  and  city.  Even  in  the  East, 
North  and  South,  the  armistice  provisions 
left  Poland  completely  surrounded  with 
enemy  territory.  She  had  no  outlet  to  the 
sea  and  could  not  send  a  letter  or  telegram 
except  through  enemy  hands.  I  do  not  know 
in  history  of  so  appalling  and    dishearten- 


ing  a  situation  as  faced  that  great  soldier 
and  patriot,  Pilsudski,  when,  escaped  from 
a  German  prison,  he  laid  the  first  stone  of 
the  Polish  government  at  Warsaw.    Here 

was  a  country  of  thirty  millions  of  people 
in  a  state  of  total  anarchy;  in  the  midst  of 
a  famine  such  that  the  children  had  ceased 
to  play  upon  the  streets;  a  country  with 
thousands  dying  daily  from  typhus  and  con- 
tagious diseases;  a  large  part  of  the  coun- 
try in  the  terrible  grip  of  Bolshevik  inva- 
sion; the  Bolshevik  army  advancing  behind 
a  cloud  of  conspirators,  and  disintegrated 
by  150  years  of  separation,  a  population 
incapable  of  paying  taxation;  a  people  abso- 
lutely without  the  means  for  preserving 
order  or  repelling  invasion;  a  people  with- 
out even  the  rudimentary  machinery  on 
which  to  build  a  great  administrative  gov- 
ernment. The  railroads  and  telegraph  lines 
had  been  greatly  destroyed  and  had  practi- 
cally ceased  to  function.  The  rolling  stock 
had  been  destroyed  or  removed  from  the 
country. 

Yet,  eight  months  after  the  arrival  of 
Pilsudski  in  Warsaw,  I  found  in  Poland  a 
vigorous  government,  functioning  with 
Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs,  of  War,  of 
Food,  of  Finance,  of  Railways,  of  Labor,  of 


Education,  of  Agriculture  and  of  Public 
Health.  An  army  of  500,000  well-drilled, 
well-equipped  and  spirited  troops.  Order 
established  throughout  the  entire  area.  The 
Bolsheviki  driven  out  of  Poland.  A  general 
election  had  taken  place  under  universal 
franchise.  A  congress  had  been  set  up,  and 
from  tne  moment  that  it  convened  the  gov- 
ernment of  Poland  ruled,  responsible  to  this 
assembly.  Local  government  had  been  estab- 
lished in  every  quarter.  Land  reform  had 
been  inaugurated  by  law.  A  public  school 
system  had  been  established.  Poland,  after 
ten  months,  was  a  democracy  with  a  gov- 
ernment for  the  people  and  by  the  people, 
in  a  country  that  had  had  no  government  for 
150'  years  but  the  government  of  foreign 
oppression.  Railways  had  been  rebuilt.  A- 
bandoned  cars  and  locomotives  had  been  re- 
paired and  brought  into  use.  Regfular, 
though  deficient^  train  services  were  being 
maintained  over  30,000  miles  of  railways. 
Canals  were  opened  and  in  operation.  Coal 
mines  were  running.  Fields  abandoned  for 
years  were  being  steadily  replanted.  Post 
and  telefrranh  services  had  been  re-estab- 
lished. TvDhus  was  beiner  brought  under 
control.  The  fundamental  finance  of  gov- 
ernment was  being  steadily  extended.    Po- 


land  had  gained  at  the  Peaee';eonf  erence  her 
critically  necessary  boundaries  and  her  out- 
let to  the  sea.  The  people  iiad  been  fed, 
and  children  were  again  plaj^g  in  the 
streets.  r    ^    ^ 

I  am  proud  that  the  United  States  could 
have  had,  through  her  organized  represen- 
tatives in  Poland,  a  material  part  int«^ 
making  of  this  great  mi-racle.  I  am  preftld 
to  have  been  appointed  by  the  American  gov 
emment  to  direct  this  service.  American  as- 
sistance was  given  to  Poland  in  ships,  in 
opening  the  route  to  the  sea  through  Dan- 
zig, in  railway  material  and  skill,  in  fight- 
ing famine  and  typhus,  in  financial  assist- 
ance to  the  government,  in  charity  to  the 
poor.  Beyond  this,  devoted  and  disinterest- 
ed Americans  have  participated  in  the 
building  of  her  economic  and  political  gov- 
ernment. This  service  marks  the  final  re- 
payment of  a  debt  of  the  American  people 
of  150  years^  standing. 

The  need  of  Poland  for  help  and  as- 
sistance from  the  United  States  is  not  yet 
over.  That  assistance  must  continue  for 
yet  another  year.  In  another  year  Poland 
will  have  found  herself  not  only  with  fully 
developed    political    institutions    but    her 


great  resources  will  give  her  an  economic 
independence  that  will  enable  her  to  con- 
tribute to  the  welfare  of  others.  Owing  to 
the  destruction  of  agriculture,  it  will  be  an- 
other year  before  Poland  will  be  able  to  pro- 
duce sufficient  food  to  maintain  her  popu- 
lation. Fully  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  fertile 
land  of  Eastern  Poland  has  yet  no  plows. 
Her  railways  require  more  reconstruction 
and  more  rolling  stock.  Her  spinning  mills 
must  be  repaired  and  raw  material  found 
for  their  operation.  Six  hundred  thousand 
workmen  are  idle,  because  they  have  not  the 
material  on  which  to  labor.  Five  years, 
with  literally  no  production  or  imports  of 
textiles,  have  left  the  Polish  people  under- 
clad  and  cold.  Typhus  still  rages  on  her 
Eastern  frontiers.  Her  population  is  as  yet 
unable  to  contribute  in  taxes  the  necessary 
expenditures  of  the  government.  Her  cur- 
rency was  inflated  and  debauched  by  enemy 
armies  by  every  device  known  to  financial 
robbery,  and,  above  all,  Poland  today  must 
hold  the  front  line  of  Europe  against  Bol- 
shevik invasion.  In  the  midst  of  her  econ- 
omic misery,  she  must  maintain  an  army  of 
500,000  men,  fighting  on  a  front  1500  miles, 
as  the  outposts  of  Europe.  Yet  the  people 
of  Poland  are  fired  by  an  emotion  of  f ree- 

9 


dom  and  sacrifice  that  will  carry  her  over 
another  year  of  suffering.  A  little  help 
will  mitigate  that  suffering,  will  expedite 
her  recovery,  will  guarantee  the  final  stabi- 
lity of  her  free  institutions. 

The  Polish  government  has  been  con- 
fronted with  a  most  difficult  problem  in  the 
matters  of  its  large  Jewish  population. 
These  people  have  suffered  from  the  same 
terrible  domination  as  the  Poles  themselves. 
They  have  been  driven  from  the  proper  de- 
velopment of  participation  in  all  branches 
of  agricultural  and  industrial  and  intellect- 
ual life  into  the  narrow  groove  of  middle- 
men, and  held  there  in  the  most  terrible 
submersion. 

The  result  is,  more  especially  in  times 
of  famine  when  the  middleman  of  any  kind 
is  between  the  upper  and  nether  mill  stones, 
that  racial  conflict  has  been  much  height- 
ened. 

Whatever  the  qualities  of  the  Jewish 
people  of  Poland  may  be,  in  the  minds  of 
their  critics  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
their  present  position  is  the  doing  of  the 
Gentile  and  all  the  world  has  yet  to  pay  for 
this  accumulated  century  of  injustice.  For 
this,  the  Polish  government  now  ten  months 

10 


old  is  not  responsible.  With  a  government 
gradually  developing  stability  with  law  and 
order,  the  latent  animosities  of  populations 
escape  to  the  surface.  It  is  not  my  inten- 
tion to  traverse  what  may  or  may  riot  have 
happened  in  Poland,  but  only  to  point  oat 
that  in  a  period  of  ten  months  the  Polish 
government  has  developed  to  a  point  that  I 
life  is  safe  and  that  freedom  from  tyranny  I 
is  accomplished.  The  fine,  nonsectarian  i 
work  done  by  the  Jewish  Joint  Distribution 
committee  in  Poland  and  the  active  leader- 
ship of  many  important  Poles  and  Jews  in 
finding  a  solution  to  this  accumulation  of 
centuries  of  wrong,  has  placed  the  whole 
Jewish  problem  in  Poland  on  a  new  foot- 
ing, and  one  to  which  we  have  every  reason 
to  look  forward  with  confidence. 

Thus,  the  coming  winter  will  be  a  hard 
winter  in  Poland.  It  will  not  be  so  hard  as 
the  winter  that  we  have  passed,  and  how 
hard  it  will  be  will  depend  entirely  upon  the- 
service  that  Poland  can  secure  from  the 
United  States.  Poland  requires  600,000  to 
800,000  tons  of  wheat  and  rye.  She  requires 
100,000  tons  of  fats.  She  ought  to  have 
200,000  bales  of  cotton.  She  also  requires 
other  raw  materials.  Altogether,  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  Poland  could  be  kept  revolving 

11 


and  her  position  steadily  improved  if  she 
could  find  credits  for  $150,000,000  in  the 
United  States.  I  believe  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  Poles  themselves  to  directly  organize 
this  assistance  and  to  prevent  any  fishing 
by  intermediaries  for  a  profit  in  this  pool 
of  misery.  You  should  have  a  strongly 
developed  organization  that  will  scrutinize 
the  appeals  made  to  you. 

Poland  also  requires  charity  for  her 
destitute.  I  and  my  colleagues  are  en- 
deavoring to  provide  the  food  supply  and 
clothing  for  1,200,000  destitute,  undernour- 
ished Polish  children.  Committees  compris- 
ing the  most  devoted  Polish  men  and  wo- 
men have  been  established  in  every  city 
and  village  in  Poland.  Canteens  for  feeding 
children  have  been  in  operation  for  many 
months.  They  were  established  by  the  A- 
merican  government,  but  their  appropria- 
tions having  been  exhausted  they  must  now 
depend  upon  charity.  These  are  the  two 
problems  before  the  Poles  in  the  United 
States,  as  to  whether  you,  in  the  greater 
prosperity  that  you  enjoy,  are  prepared  to 
devote  your  major  resources  to  the  loaning 
of  money  to  the  government  of  Poland  for 
the  purchase  of  its  essentials,  and  whether 
you  are  prepared  to  assist  us  in  charity  in 

12 


the  support  of  your  own  brothers  and  sis- 
ters in  Poland  who  are  preserving  the  life 
of  1,200,000  children.  The  Polish  govern- 
ment and  public  charity  are  paying  all  the 
expenses  of  this  organization  in  Poland, 
We  are  depending  upon  you  to  enable  us  to 
buy  in  the  United  States  the  clothes,  milk 
and  other  foods  for  these  children,  which 
cannot  be  bought  in  Poland. 

There  is  another  subject  on  which  I 
wish  to  say  a  few  words,  and  that  is  the 
question  of  the  duties  of  citizenship  of  Poles 
in  the  United  States.  You  and  your  an- 
cestors have  come  to  the  United  States  to 
free  yourselves  from  oppression  and  to 
participate  in  a  country  of  greater  prosper- 
ity and  a  higher  standard  of  living.  You 
have  come,  therefore,  to  take  advantage  of 
the  institutions  that  have  been  built  up  here 
in  150  years  for  the  well-being  of  the  peo- 
ple in  this  country.  You  have  been  given 
the  priyilege  of  entrance  into  this  com- 
munity without  restriction  and  you  have 
benefitted  by  its  blessing.  It  is  right  that 
you  should  have  a  tender  heart  for  the 
country  of  your  origin,  but  your  first  and 
primary  duty  is  to  the  country  of  your  adop- 
tion. It  is  a  happy  circumstance  that  the 
whole  of  the  American  people  are  equally 

13 


anxious  with  citizens  of  Polish  origin  for 
the  upbuilding  of  the  Polish  republic,  aijd 
that  therefore  there  is  no  conflict  in  this 
service  to  both  countries. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  are  to- 
day themselves  facing  great  difficulties  of 
social  and  industrial  character.    If  we  are 
to  solve  these  difficulties,  it  will  be  by  the 
undivided  support  of  our  institutions  from 
which  we  have  obtained  the  blessings  which 
we  now  enjoy.    Many  foolish  ideas  are  be- 
ing circulated    amongst    the    f oreignborn 
population  of  the  United  States.  Many  of 
these  foreign  -  born  are  interesting    them- 
selves in  the  destruction  of  our  primary  in- 
stitutions and  defiance  of    our  laws.    The 
:, American  people  are  fast  losing    patience 
^''  with  this  attitude.  It  may  develop  out  of  this 
that  the  "open  door^^  towards  Europe  will 
\jjs}^^  be  in  a  large  measure  closed.    But,    worse 
/  than  this,  there  may  develop    out  of  it    a 

prejudice  against  every  speaker  of  a  foreign 
language  in  the  United  States.  It  creates 
prejudice  against  extending  aid  to  those 
countries  in  Europe  from  which  our  foreign- 
born  populations  spring. 

If  reforms  are  needed  in  the  United 
States,  they  will  be  carried  out  by  those 
whose  parents  have  grown  up  amid  our  in- 

14 


stitutions  and  those  who  have  become  in 
sentiment  and  spirit  a  part  of  our  people* 
It  is  fortunate  that  the  Polish  population  of 
the  United  States  have  been  but  little  in- 
fluenced by  these  forms  of  agitation.  If  a 
Pole  exists  who  has  associated  himself  with 
the  organizations  that  devote  themselves 
to  the  destruction  of  our  institutions,  that 
Pole  is  not  only  disloyal  to  the  United  States 
but  he  is  endeavoring  to  paralyze  the  arm 
that  is  supporting  the  independence  of  his 
own  mother  country.  Those  who  are  dis- 
satisfied with  our  institutions  can  always 
choose  the  alternative  of  retiring  to  those 
from  which  they  came. 

It  is  therefore  the  duty  of  those  of  you 
who  speak  our  language  and  who  have 
lived  under  our  institutions,  to  see  to  it 
that  people  of  your  blood  do  not  associate 
themselves  with  movements  that  are  an- 
tagonistic to  our  public  sentiment  and  to 
our  social  and  economic  institutions. 


15 


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•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made 
4  days  prior  to  due  date 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


AUG  2  4  2006 


Oaylord  Bros. 

Makers 

Syracuse.  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN.  21.  1908 


YB   \2 


0^7 i  7 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMJ^P^i^  U6MRY 


